m the exclamations of delight to the chill of
disappointment. The mountains on every side were dreary, and without the
rich relief of the pastured eminences, but most of the valley was rich and
generous. In one spot a sac d'eau, one of those reservoirs of water which
form among the glaciers on the summits of the rocks, had broken, and,
descending like a water-spout, it had swept before it every vestige of
cultivation, covering wide breadths of the meadows with a debris that
resembled chaos. A frightful barrenness, and the most smiling fertility,
were in absolute contact: patches of green, that had been accidentally
favored by some lucky formation of the ground, sometimes appearing like
oases of the desert, in the very centre of a sterility that would put the
labor and the art of man at defiance for a century. In the midst of this
terrific picture of want sat a cretin, with his semi-human attributes, the
lolling tongue, the blunted faculties, and the degraded appetites, to
complete the desolation. Issuing from this belt of annihilated vegetation,
the scene became again as pleasant as the fancy could desire, or the eye
crave. Fountains leaped from rock to rock in the sun's rays; the valley
was green and gentle; the mountains began to show varied and pleasing
forms; and happy smiling faces appeared, whose freshness and regularity
were perhaps of a cast superior to that of most of the Swiss. In short,
the Valais was then; as now, a country of opposite extremes, but in which,
perhaps, there is a predominance of the repulsive and inhospitable.

It was fairly nightfall, notwithstanding the trifling distance they had
journeyed, when the travellers reached Martigny, where dispositions had
previously been made for their reception during the hours of sleep. Here
preparations were made to seek their rest at an early hour, in order to be
in readiness for the fatiguing toil of the following day.

Martigny is situated at the point where the great valley of the Rhone
changes its direction from a north and south to an east and west course,
and it is the spot whence three of the celebrated mountain paths diverge,
to make as many passages of the upper Alps. Here are the two routes of the
great and little St. Bernard, both of which lead into Italy, and that of
the Col-de-Balme, which crosses a spur of the Alps into Savoy toward the
celebrated valley of Chamouni. It was the intention of the Baron de
Willading and his friend to journey by the